Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A44665
|
An ansvver to Dr. Stillingfleet's Mischief of separation being a letter written out of the countrey to a person of quality in the city. Who took offence at the late sermon of Dr. Stillingfleet, Dean of S. Pauls; before the lord mayor.
|
Howe, John, 1630-1705.
|
1680
(1680)
|
Wing H3014A; ESTC R215389
|
34,952
|
57
|
no It is not how far Christians are bound to submit to a restraint of their Christian liberty Which I now inquire after of those things in the Treatise it self but whether they do consult for the Churches Peace and Unity who suspend it upon such things How far either the example of our Saviour or his Apostles doth warrant such rigorous impositions We never read the Apostles making Laws but of things supposed necessary When the Counsel of Apostles met at Jerusalem for deciding a Case that disturbed the Churches Peace we see they would lay no other burden 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 besides these necessary things Act. 15. 29. It was not enough with them that the things would be necessary when they had required them but they looked on an Antecedent necessity either absolute or for the present state which was the only ground of their imposing those Commands upon the Gentile Christians There were after this great diversities of practice and Varieties of Observations among Christians but the Holy Ghost never thought those things fit to be made matters of Laws to which all parties should conform all that the Apostles required as to these was mutual forbearance and condescension towards each other in them The Apostles valued not differences at all and those things it is evident they accounted such which whether men did them or not was not of concernment to Salvation And what reason is there why men should be so strictly tyed up to such things which they may do or let alone and yet be very good Christians still Without all controversie the main In-let of all the distractions confusions and divisions of the Christian World hath been by adding other conditions of Church-communion than Christ hath done Nor am I now inquiring whether the things Commanded be lawful or no Nor whether indifferences may be determined or no Nor how far Christians are bound to submit to a restraint of their Christian Liberty But only inquiring as he there doth concerning the Charter given by Christ for the binding men up to more than himself hath done And I further inquire by what power they can be bound which Christ hath not given And if there be no such power to bind them suppose the things required were all lawful which if it can be evinc't I should rejoyce to see done yet while they cannot in conscience think they are how can they apprehend themselves bound to be without the means of Salvation which Christ's Charter entitles them to I readily grant it is fit a man do many things for peace and Common Orders sake which otherwise no Law doth formally oblige him to i. e. supposing he can do those things without intolerable prejudice to himself And so it is commonly determined in the matter of scandals But can it be thought a man is to put himself out of the state or way of Salvation in complement to such as will otherwise take offence And be so Courteous as to Perish for ever rather than they shall be displeased Yea and it may be moreover added That our course being accounted lawful must also as the Doctor speaks in another case be thought a duty For the things that are as means necessary to our salvation are also necessary by Divine Precept We are commanded to hear Gods Word to devote our selves and our Children to God in Baptism and at the Lords own Table to remember him and shew forth his death till he come And if we compare together certain Positions of this Reverend Author we cannot see but he must as our case is acknowledge our obligation to the practice which he here seems to blame For in his Iren. p. 109. He asserts That every Christian is under an obligation to joyn in Church-society with others because it is his duty to profess himself a Christian and to own his Religion publickly and to partake of the Ordinances and Sacraments of the Gospel which cannot be without society with some Church or other And he after adds on the same page It had been a case disputed by some particularly by Grotius the supposed Author of a little Tract An semper sit communicandum per symbola When he design'd the Syncretism with the Church of Rome whether in a time when Churches are divided it be a Christians duty to communicate with any of those Parties which divide the Church and not rather to suspend communion from all of them A case not hard to be decided for either the person questioning it doth suppose the Churches divided to remain true Churches but some to be more pure than other in which case by vertue of his general obligation to Communion he is bound io adhere to that Church which appears most to retain its Evangelical purity To which purpose he further tells us page 110. He knows not whether Chrysostom ' s act were to be commended who after being made a Deacon in the Church of Antioch by Meletius upon his death because Flavianus came in irregularly as Bishop of the Church would neither communicate with him nor with Paulinus another Bishop at that time in the City nor with the Meletians but for three years time withdrew himself from communion with any of them And p. 113. Where any Church is guilty of Corruptions both in Doctrine and Practice which it avoweth and professeth and requireth the owning them as necessary conditions of communion with her there a non-communion with that Church is necessary and a total and positive separation is lawful and convenient What he discourses page 111 112. upon the Question Whether it is a sin to communicate with Churches true as to Essentials but supposed corrupt in the exercise of Discipline Many of us will no doubt heartily concur with him in But it touches not the case of many more who do not so much fear upon the account of the neglect of Discipline to be involv'd in the guilt of other mens sin as there seems to be little cause that part being not incumbent upon us Nor if that be his meaning when he speaks of separating on a pretence of great purity is it the case with most of us but we justly fear and therefore avoid to be made to sin our selves by having such things as we judge to be sinful imposed on us as the Conditions of our Communion And as to this case this Reverend Author speaks our sense in this last cited Proposition and pleads our present Cause Nor need we more to be said on behalf of it than what is reducible to that general Proposition or particularly to that second thing compared with the third which p. 115. he says makes separation and withdrawment of communion lawful and necessary viz. Corruption of practice where we say as he doth We speak not of practice as relating to the civil conversation of men but as it takes in the Agenda of Religion when unlawful things of that kind are not only crept into a Church but are the prescribed devotion of it Those being
required which he adds as an accession to the foregoing as necessary conditions of communion from all the Members of their Church which makes our withdrawing from them unavoidably necessary as long as we judge them to be such corruptions as indeed they are And whereas he instances only in such things as belong to the Head of Idolatrous Customs suppressing what might be instanced under the other Head which he also there mentions viz. Superstitious practice yet we doubt not if other things also that appear to be sinful besides idolatrous Customs be required as necessary conditions of communion the case will be the same unless we will distinguish sins into such as be lawful and such as be unlawful Or there be any that may be committed that we may be admitted to the communion of this or that Church Now to reduce things to the method which sutes the present case if this reverend Author do still judge that where sinful conditions of Communion are imposed there Non-communion is necessary and those things be sinful to us which our Consciences judge to be so as he hath acknowledged And again if he still judge that we are under an Obligation to joyn in Church-society so as to own our Religion publickly and to partake of the Ordinances and Sacraments of the Gospel He must certainly account that our duty which he taxes in this Sermon as our fault at least till our Consciences be otherwise informed whereof many of us have no great hope We are indeed not so stupid as not to apprehend there are Laws the Letter whereof seems adverse to us Nor are we so ungrateful as not to acknowledge his Majesties clemency in not subjecting us to the utmost rigor of those Laws whom we cannot without deep regret so much as seem not in every thing exactly to obey Nor can it enter into our minds to imagine that he expects to be obeyed by us at the expence of our Salvation Or that it would be at all grateful to him that being as we are unsatisfied in some things that are by the Law made necessary to our partaking the priviledges of the Christian Church we should become Pagans in duty to him His Majesty was once pleased to give an ample Testimony by his never-to be-forgotten gracious declaration of March 15. 1672. How remote any such thought was from his Royal Breast and though we humbly submit to the exigency of those reasons of State from whence it proceeded that we enjoy not the continued positive favour which his Majesty was then pleased to express towards us yet we have no reason to doubt but his propensions are equally benigne as they were Nor though it be uncertain to us what Laws they are the Authority whereof this reverend person relies upon to make our practice sinful yet we hope he doth not mean to urge us herein with the Laws of the Civil Government because those as much forbid our Non-Communion and under as severe penalty for which he acquits us from the Guilt of Shism or if we endeavour satisfaction from any sin imputable to us But if that should be his meaning we desire it may be considered how unreasonable it seems that the design of the Law relating to that part of our practice which the Doctor in this Sermon condemns being declaredly to prevent sedition they should take themselves to be meant who are conscious of no such design or disposition And again that it is not with any reason Charity or Justice to be supposed that when that and other restrictive Laws were made either the Temporal ruine of so great a part of the Nation as are now found to be dissenters was intended by the legislators or the reducing them to the condition of Heathens But an uniformity in the Worship of God being in it self a thing realy desireable this means was thought fit to be tryed in order to that end And so are humane Laws about such mutable matters generally designed to be probationary the event and success being unforeknown Whereupon after a competent time of Trial as his Majesty was graciously pleased to declare his own favourable sense and intention so it is very commonly known that the like propensions were by Common suffrage expressed in Parliament viz. To grant a relaxation So that the Law being in its own Nature nothing else but an indication of the Legislators will we may account the thing was in substance done so far as may satisfie a mans private reason and conscience concerning the Law-givers intention and pleasure though it were not done with that formality as uses and is generally needful to be stood upon by them who are the Ministers of the Law And that it was not done with that formality also seemed rather to be from a disagreement about the manner or method of doing it than about the thing to be done And how usual is it for Laws without formal repeal gently and gradually to expire grow Old and vanish away not being longer useful as the ritual part of the Mosaical Law did being come an ineffectual and unprofitable thing And how easie were it to instance in many other Laws the letter of which they that urge these against the Dissenters do without scruple transgress and from which no such weighty reasons do urge to borrow now and then a point How many dispense with themselves in many parts of their required Conformity that have obliged themselves to it The Priests in the Temple trangress the Law and are blameless Yea and he that knows all things and who is judge of all knows how little scruple is made of transgrâ—ssing the Laws by gross immoralities and debaucheries Men learn to judge of the sacredness of Laws by their own inclinations Any that can be wire-drawn and made by torture to speak against Religion not modified their way must be most binding Such as prohibit the vilest and most open wickedness bind as the Wit hs did Sampson The summe of all is that whereas we are under the Obligation of the Divine Law to Worship God in the use of those his Ordinances which require to be dispensed and attended in society and that we apprehend we cannot do it without sin in the way which this reverend Author invites us to Whereas also we do with this Author deliberate whether Christ hath given any power to men to oblige us to the things we scruple or disoblige us from the things we practice and judge it unproved We cannot but reckon the judgment the Dr. hath given in our case that our practice is sinful is erroneous and indefensible by any Man but least fitly of most other men attempted to be defended by himself From whom it would little have been expected that he should so earnestly recommend that very thing to us as the only Foundation of Union which he had so publickly told us in his Preface to the Irenicum was without Controversie the main in-let of all the distractions confusions and divisions of the